Victory for Vote@16 at the World Economic Forum!

On 29 September, Anna Widegren – Secretary General of the European Youth Forum attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) Reshaping Europe conference. This unique meeting served as a key milestone for the WEF’s New Concept for Europe initiative. It brought together 120 participants, including leading influencers from government, civil society, academia and business, as well as a community of Youth Champions, who are developing new ideas and aspirations for the Future of Europe from local communities.

Insights from this meeting and the ongoing initiative will culminate in a new narrative for Europe, to be presented at the Forum’s Annual Meeting 2018 in Davos (Switzerland), to leading policy and decision-makers.

The day had 5 areas of focus, and the European Youth Forum participated in the one regarding Democracy and Governance. Each focus group had to come up with ideas and recommendations, then choose their best two to be presented to the Plenary in the afternoon and finally all participants would have the chance to vote for what they thought to be the best idea to be presented to decision-makers and world leaders at the WEF Annual Meeting in 2018.

The European Youth Forum presented various ideas to the Democracy and Governance focus group, among which was lowering the voting age to 16. The European Youth Forum contributed with its expertise and knowledge on the subject. MEP Marietje Schaake (Netherlands – ALDE) presented the two ideas on behalf of the Democracy and Governance group which received the highest number of votes to the Plenary, one of which was Vote@16! Once all the ideas of the focus groups had been presented, all participants had the chance to vote on the idea which they wanted to be brought forward as a recommendation to world leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting and Vote@16 got the most votes!

This is a great success and we look forward to working with the World Economic Forum to make Vote@16 a reality everywhere!